SO, WITH English club football about to get under way, it's fantasy football league time again. And as some of us try to weigh up whether we're picking those Irish players because they represent genuine value or for more sentimental reasons, Giovanni Trapattoni will kick off his first full season in charge by doing it all for real at Abbotstown this afternoon.

It promises to be a tough year for the veteran Italian, who, if next month's game in Georgia goes ahead, will have overseen seven of Ireland's 10 qualifiers by early June.

At that stage we'll have a fair idea of whether his appointment has been a success. The truth is that still being in with a shout of second place would probably suggest significant progress is being made.

He is, of course, largely at the mercy of the gods. Important players like Shay Given, Damien Duff and Steven Reid have had their involvement with the team severely limited over the last couple of years. And the squad lacks the depth to cope with such losses.

At his best, Duff can still be a match-winner for the Irish, while it would be hard to overstate Given's importance at the other end. Certainly, it's difficult to imagine that the fiasco in Nicosia in the Euro 2008 qualifiers would have happened if the Donegalman had been fit and available.

The return of Dean Kiely is a positive development in terms of cover - the West Brom goalkeeper reminded us of his quality against Colombia at Craven Cottage in May - but Given consistently operates at a higher level and his presence will restore confidence to a back four that has sometimes looked dishevelled these past couple of years.

The game in London was a welcome first win for Trapattoni but there were plenty of shortcomings highlighted that night too.

Hopefully, the Irish might beat Norway in Oslo next week to start this season in the same way they started the last one in Denmark. But equally welcome would be the sight of his players settling into a more composed pattern of play and exerting more control over the game.

At Craven Cottage, Glenn Whelan and Liam Miller were overrun for long periods by a densely packed Colombian central midfield. And while Colombia's formation might have allowed the Irish wide men freedom out on the flanks, the Irish need to develop an ability to counter the strengths of their opponents while retaining an attacking bite - because relying on the sort of last-ditch defending and, as it turned out, consistently high-class goalkeeping we witnessed three months ago is not a recipe for success in a qualifying campaign.

On the face of it, Trapattoni has just about a squad's worth of players to choose from in the English top flight. And when you throw in those from Scottish and English Championship clubs, things could clearly be worse.

The summer transfer market could have been kinder to the management team, however. Whether Robbie Keane's move to Anfield really turns out to be such a great thing we will have to wait and see. But what is certainly disappointing is that, so far at least, Kevin Doyle and Stephen Hunt didn't get moves to Premier League clubs that would have made them automatic first-team choices for Ireland.

Lee Carsley's decision to drop a division to be closer to his family is entirely understandable and may not make much difference at this stage of his career, but there will be some concern within the Ireland set-up about Steve Finnan's chance of playing regularly for Liverpool, Paul McShane's future at Sunderland and perhaps the ability of somebody like Kevin Kilbane, so long a fixture in this Irish side, to keep doing it at the highest level.

For others, there may be opportunities to shine. Whelan will get the chance to show if he can cope in the Premier League, and if he can few will be happier about it than Trapattoni.

Similarly, good campaigns for the likes of Liam Lawrence, Liam Miller, Daryl Murphy and Anthony Stokes would be most welcome for the Italian.

It's maybe too much to imagine Ireland can mount a serious assault on the qualification group's top spot. But wins over Georgia, Montenegro and Cyprus would suggest progress in the build-up to the two critically important games with Bulgaria.

Any suggestion we might somehow spring a surprise on the Italians seems wildly optimistic.

Assistant coach Marco Tardelli expressed the view during the European Championship that a change of manager by the Italians would probably be a good thing for Ireland. But even then it was widely known that Marcello Lippi was waiting in the wings and it's hard to see how the return of the man who guided his country to the World Cup title in Germany just over two years ago helps Ireland's cause much.

As for their form in Austria and Switzerland, the Italians were undoubtedly disappointing by their own standards but they competed without their inspirational skipper Fabio Cannavaro. And the opening defeat by the Netherlands aside, they drew with a Romanian team that had comfortably won their qualification group, beat the admittedly crumbling French by a couple of goals and then, without key players, held the eventual champions scoreless for 120 minutes.

For all their overall flaws, individual players like Fabio Grosso, Giorgio Chiellini and Andrea Pirlo looked outstanding. And though Luca Toni looked terrible, he may have recovered by the start of next summer the goalscoring knack that has made him the world's second-best-paid player.

That, of course, is a long way away and of far more immediate interest is who Trapattoni includes this afternoon in his squad for Oslo.

Me? I've got the services of Stephen Ireland safely nailed down for the campaign ahead.

It would be nice to think "the Trap" has too, but then reality has a habit of being more complicated than fantasy. Never more, one suspects, than when the difference boils down to actually having to deal with your professional footballers.